Did Paul prohibit women from teaching and exercising authority in the church, or was he simply addressing cultural problems in first-century Ephesus?

In this episode of A Reasonable Response, Robert Bosley examines arguments made by Frank Turek, Cliff Knechtle, and Stuart Knechtle concerning 1 Timothy 2 and the biblical roles of men and women.

Bosley challenges their appeal to historical context, arguing that Paul's instructions are grounded in God's created order rather than temporary cultural circumstances. He also addresses the meaning of women being "saved through childbearing" and the claim that Paul was calling men to become more like women.

At the heart of the discussion is a fundamental question: Will we allow Scripture to interpret Scripture, or will speculative historical explanations override the plain teaching of God's Word?

Paul is telling men to act more like women at the time, to be monogamous and to be faithful to your partner. No, it's not men need to be like women. It's men need to be like God. Welcome to Reasonable Response. I'm Robert Bosley, and the purpose of this podcast is to give a reasoned response to issues related to the Christian faith from a reformed Baptist perspective.

Today we're taking a look at a fairly short video on the Cross Examined YouTube channel by Frank Turek, and he's joined by Cliff and Stuart Connechtly talking about First Timothy 2 and dealing with the issue of women in the church. And they're kind of trying to defend a sort of complementarianism. The problem is the way they're arguing is not a biblical argument. They don't actually follow Paul's own logic and his own statements, and they're really assuming almost a quasi-egalitarian, quasi-feminist position to argue against feminism. So it's a very kind of confused video, hopefully in the midst of all the ongoing debates about the role of women and what part they can play in the church, hopefully this can be helpful to you.

So with that, let's begin. ["Women Should Be Served"] begin. You point to the part where Paul says, women ought to be silent in the church, But then you point out the context of that passage. Do either of you want to unpack that? Well, so we maybe disagree on this one a little bit.

Yeah, we do. I think it's rare we disagree. We try and disagree. All right. So basically when I was in seminary and did a little bit of cross-cultural study on this one, typically when a woman was asked to remain silent or a man for that matter, it's because they already knew the material.

And so if you were asked to remain silent, it's the ones who were supposed to be talking and asking questions were the ones who didn't know the material yet. Now, obviously you're going to, you're going to go from the other angle, which is probably more likely overall in terms of what's going on. Yeah, because I don't see that in the book, Stuart. Starting out the video, it's a little unclear, at least to me. Maybe the larger video that this is part of clarifies things.

I don't know. But it's a little unclear to me exactly what his son means by this. It sounds like what he's saying is that those who are told to be quiet are those who already know the material, but That doesn't actually make really much sense, because they're, especially in context of what 1 Timothy 2 actually says, the verse in question is really verse 11, "'Let a woman learn in silence with all submission.'" If they already know the material, why would they be told to learn in silence? Typically, and it seems like a lot of people have this idea that the women are confused. They don't know it, so they're asking questions, they're speaking up.

That seems to be at odds with the idea of being told to be quiet because you already know it I'm not entirely sure what exactly his point is But regardless the the women are told to learn in silence not be silent because you have nothing more to learn. It's a very strange way of reading this and a problem that we'll see in the rest of this video. It's a short video, but over and over again, they make these statements pulling a small idea or something out of context and not actually letting the rest of the scripture there determine what it means. When you read the more difficult passages in the Bible, like 1 Corinthians 11 and 14, like 1 Timothy chapter 2, you've got to study the context very, very carefully. All you gotta do to figure out what's going on is watch the movie, Yentl.

Barbra Streisand plays a young woman who is not allowed to get an education because she's a woman. So she disguises herself as a guy in order that she can go to school. How tragic. But that's the culture. To borrow the famous slogan from real estate, location, location, location, the key to biblical interpretation is context, context, context.

And that's actually also really handy because there are really three contexts to look at. First, you need to look at the immediate textual context, the redemptive canonical context. So what the actual words say immediately around in the passage you're looking at, that's the textual context. The redemptive canonical context, where does this part fit into the broader narrative of scripture and the history of redemption? And then the Historical context, where does this story fit into the broader history of humanity?

And with this, that is in descending order of importance. Ultimately, our first standard, our most important context to look at is the immediate scriptural context. Now he runs to historical context and uses that to frame and really just overwrite all of the immediate textual context because his conclusion is not at all what Paul's conclusion actually is. His basis for why Paul says women need to be silent in the church has nothing to do with the reasons Paul gives, as we'll see in the next clip. When you read 1 Timothy 2, who's Paul writing to?

He's writing to Timothy. Where is the guy pastoring? He's pastoring in Ephesus. When you read about Ephesus in Acts, they were into goddess worship, Diana of the Ephesians they worshiped. And the temple was a messed up place there, Diana of the Ephesians.

At the top of the leadership were virgin women. Under them were castrated men and under them were thousands of prostitutes. And you went to the temple to have sex with a prostitute as a way to know God. Now to say that it's a sexually chaotic atmosphere is a mild understatement and Timothy's going nuts. How on earth do we control and teach the followers of Christ what it looks like to be a sexually pure person, but to enjoy sex as a gift from God within the context of marriage, a lifelong commitment between a man and a woman till death parts us.

And so Paul writes some interesting things there in 1 Timothy, chapter two. And I think a lot of it has to do with you're dealing with goddess worship, you're dealing with a totally sexually messed up place, you're dealing with incredible sexism expressed through Gnosticism and expressed in all of the different cultures that women were inferior. So his argument is that you have the cult of Artemis, the temple of Artemis in Ephesus, and this is a center of cult prostitution, and so there's a lot of sexual degeneracy and the women are in authority in the temple and therefore that is affecting these people who presumably are coming out of this culture, converting to Christ and are part of this church and Timothy's struggling to figure out how to shepherd these people well, especially women who maybe used to being in charge and they're dealing with all this cultural issues and cultural baggage, largely stemming from the cult of Artemis. Two problems with that. First, that's not what Paul says.

The reason for women to learn in silence with all submission is not because the temple of Artemis has screwed up the thinking of women and the culture is disordered because they are worshiping this false goddess. That's not what Paul says. He says, I do not pervade to teach or to have authority, but to learn in silence for because this is the reason for this instruction. Adam was formed first and then Eve. There's a hierarchy established in creation of male headship.

Second, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived fell into transgression. So there's a unique judgment put on the woman as the one who fell into sin first, although it's Adam's sin that causes all of mankind to be sinners. So you have male headship, federal headship, and the susceptibility of the woman to being deceived. These are the reasons given by Paul for the reason that women should learn in silence. That's the first reason.

So that's not what Paul says the reason is. Second, it's not true, actually, which is a pretty big problem. There is no evidence of cult prostitution in Ephesus. This is a common idea, especially in older writings, but there is, first of all, no justification for it in the scriptures themselves. Second of all, historically, there's no evidence that it ever happened.

The Temple of Artemis, the great Artemisium that was one of the wonders of the world, was a place where the goddess Artemis or Diana, some versions read where Paul and Ephesus, there's a riot and they shout out, great is Diana of the Ephesians. Same goddess, different name. There's zero evidence that she was worshiped via cult prostitution. In fact, it doesn't even make sense because she was seen as a virgin goddess who was the goddess of pregnancy and midwifery as well as she was a huntress and so there's all sorts of things involved there. If you want to read more about this, S.M.

Baugh wrote a great article back in 1999 for the Journey of Evangelical Theology Society, titled Cult Prostitution in New Testament Ephesus, where he evaluates and rebuts this idea. And it's a fantastic article. His conclusion is, despite the received opinion to the contrary, I do not believe the cult prostitution was practiced in Greek and Roman regions of the New Testament era. The evidence thought to support this institution in the cities of Corinth and Ephesus was found wanting in our survey of Strabo and other authors and on and on. He says, hopefully the Ephesian cult prostitutes will soon disappear from our literature and our pulpits for these chimera exist only in the minds of people today, not in the past.

And his conclusion has been supported and upheld in the nearly 30 years since he published this article. So major problems with this conclusion, with this standard that he's setting here, they're wanting to defend complementarianism, but they're not arguing the way Paul is arguing. That's a problem. You have a good goal, but you need to use the apostles arguments, not grab onto whatever you think you can use to make the case that won't offend your egalitarian and feminist neighbors. Use the apostolic standard.

Paul hands 1st Timothy 2 by saying, and women will be saved through childbearing. You got to be kidding me, Paul. You're telling me that the way to heaven for women is to have sex and have a baby? No. No.

Paul is attacking, I'm convinced, the Gnostic idea that sex and the body are evil and having babies are evil, and he's saying no. You have sex within marriage. You bring children into the world, that's a gift from God. And you will be saved as you go through childbearing. Childbearing is not the way to heaven, it's as you continue on in faith and good deeds.

And yes, That includes sex within the context of a lifelong commitment, that's marriage, and bringing little children into the world, which is an incredibly creative gift from God. First Timothy 2.15 is famously one of the most debated verses in all of scripture. It reads, nevertheless, she will be saved and childbearing if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with self-control. There's a lot of things that go into this that make it difficult to interpret. First of all, he starts with she.

The question is, who is she? Well, the immediate referent is Eve. The possible immediate referent is Eve. But that doesn't seem likely because why would Paul be talking about the salvation of Eve? Then he switches from the singular she to they halfway through the verse and he's not changing her pronouns.

There seems to be either a change in reference or at least a broadening of it. Particular women will be saved if they just generally continue in faith, love and holiness. I don't think that what his conclusion is that simply she will be saved, she'll be preserved through childbearing if they continue in faith, love, holiness with self-control. That doesn't seem to make much sense here, especially his idea that this is a gnostic idea that the body is bad, sex is bad. Well, if that's what is in view here, then how is this related to the supposed cult prostitution, which would then elevate sex?

That's a means of worship. His whole response is just very confused. I think what Paul is getting at here is not what Cliff is saying, that she'll be saved through, or she'll be preserved in the process of childbearing, as if God is holding her through this difficult process. I don't think that's what is meant. Or rather, should be saved through, the New King James reads, in its dia in Greek, which sometimes can have the idea of extension through or progress through something.

More often, it has the idea of by means of. And so I think really what is being said is that women will be saved through by means of childbearing. Now, what does that mean? Is it what he's saying? It can't mean that women have their sins forgiven because they have kids.

Well, no. Biblically, we see salvation is a large concept. It encompasses a whole lot of ideas. We are saved, we are being saved, and we will be saved. All three ideas are present in the New Testament using the same word, sozo, saved, salvation.

What I think is meant here is that we are being saved idea. Women are saved, or we would put it in our more technical vocabulary of they will be sanctified through bearing children if they continue in faith, love, holiness with self-control. And I know for a fact I could ask my wife and I could ask many of the mothers in our church, what is one of the most sanctifying experiences you've ever had? Well, it's having and raising children. I think that's what his point is here, that the fall of Eve was not so severe, so catastrophic, that giving birth is nothing but a curse.

The idea could have been brought into people's mind that the fall so corrupted a woman's nature that having children is nothing but a negative. Rather, there's pain, there's difficulty in labor, but it is a means of your growth in holiness. It is one of the unique ways that women are made into the likeness of Christ and growing in holiness because God has given them this unique opportunity to be sanctified if they go through it with faith, love, holiness, and self-control. And I also want to point out that it's not often looked at from the opposite side. What I mean by that is when Paul's writing these passages, a man in say Corinth or Ephesus as a Roman could have sex with whomever he wanted to have sex with, even if he's married, even if he's married, but a woman couldn't.

A woman was supposed to be faithful to the man. Paul comes along and tells men, you've got to be faithful to your wife. That's right, brother. That's totally revolutionary in that mindset. And it's like the opposite of feminism today.

You know, feminism tells today's women to act like men in the sense, don't be monogamous, sleep around, do whatever you want. Whereas Paul is telling men to act more like women at the time, to be monogamous and to be faithful to your partner. This, this is a very strange phenomenon in modern evangelicalism where women are just seemed to naturally be assumed to be inherently holy? No, that's just not the case. Women are fallen creatures.

They are fallen daughters of Eve just as men are fallen sons of Adam. There is no inherent holiness or unique feature of being a fallen woman where they're necessarily going to be consistently monogamous. Again, that would fly in the face of the whole idea of there being called prostitution, which again there wasn't. So no, it's not men need to be like women, it's men need to be like God. God has one bride, the church.

He is faithful to protect and preserve and love her. Men, learn from this example. Women, you need to learn from the example. Be like the church who submits and listens to its Lord in everything. Women in the same way, submit and listen to your husbands.

The standard isn't women, the standard is Christ. That whole idea, he says, you know, this is contrary to feminism, what Paul is writing. But if you're setting up women as the standard that men need to read that men need to reach up to You're functioning like a feminist that women are the ideal and we need to conform ourselves to that. No That's not what Paul is arguing. That's not what the scriptures say.

That's not what God has said Stop arguing against feminism like a feminist. Argue like the apostles. So in conclusion, a short video, a quick response, but hopefully illuminating to see this is not how you argue. This is not how you do exegesis. This is not how we interpret scripture.

Use the context. Yes, and absolutely. If you're going to use context, make sure your historical context is actually true, but don't neglect what the text actually says. Scripture's best interpreter is the scripture itself, especially when it's the very next sentence. So simply let the apostles and the prophets speak for themselves and trust that the Spirit of God will work in the hearts of the people of God to obey the Word of God.

Well, that's all the time we have for today. If you'd like to connect with me personally, you can do so on X at R. Bosley 1689. And if you'd like more information about church and family life, you can do so at churchandfamilylife.com. And remember, let your reasonableness be known to all men.

Thanks. See you